First Qantas flights land at Heathrow

Tuesday 1 November 2011 09:02 BST

Service resumed: The QF09 from Melbourne to Heathrow, via Singapore, was the first UK-bound flight in operation, and arrived at 5.30am.

The first flights back to the UK with Australian airline Qantas have arrived at London Heathrow.Up to 70,000 passengers worldwide were hit by the airline's decision to ground all of its planes in an industrial dispute.

Qantas resumed flights yesterday after intervention by the Australian government, with the first service to operate being a flight from Sydney to Jakarta, Indonesia.

The QF09 from Melbourne to Heathrow, via Singapore, was the first UK-bound flight in operation, and arrived at 5.30am. Passengers also arrived from Sydney and Brisbane on later Qantas services.

Mike and Shelley Clark, both 57, from York, had spent a month in Australia and missed out on a three-day trip to Hong Kong on their way back due to the row.

Mr Clark said: "We were originally due to fly on Sunday. We looked at the Qantas website before going to the airport for the Bangkok flight, but everything seemed fine. It was only when we got to the airport that we found out it had been cancelled."

"We were told there was no point in waiting around because it was taking too long to process people, so they suggested trying rebooking on the internet."

His wife said: "Luckily we were staying with my cousin so it wasn't too bad for us - we were able to go back with them. Our travel company sorted our new flights, leaving two days later.

"It doesn't bear thinking about what it would have been like if we'd been stuck at the airport, with so many people wanting accommodation. We had been due to go to Hong Kong though and couldn't do that, so we will need to try to get our money back. At least we had our main holiday."

Andrew Edwards, 50, from Ascot, Berkshire, arrived back on a flight from Sydney.He said: "We were very fortunate in that we were on the first flight from Sydney once the services got back to normal. "We were really worried when we heard about the problems and found the airport to be really quiet when we got there, but were relieved everything was OK. They were very apologetic on the flight and kept making lots of announcements to everyone."

Roger Gidley, 59, from Norwich, who flew from Bangkok on a Qantas flight, said: "We were expecting queues when we got to the airport, but when we got to the desk there was no-one there."They had dispersed everyone already, so it's been great as far as we're concerned. We've been really pleased with the airline."

Qantas said its flights are back on schedule today, with the remaining backlog of passengers affected by the two-day grounding expected to be cleared by this afternoon.

The airline's planes took to the skies again after the Australian government ordered an arbitration hearing. In a victory for Qantas, Fair Work Australia issued an emergency ruling, ordering the unions to return to the negotiating table and come to an agreement within 21 days or face binding arbitration.

In the last few weeks, workers have staged strikes and refused overtime work over concerns that some of the airline's 35,000 jobs would be moved overseas. The strikes have cost the airline 15 million Australian dollars (£10 million) a week.